


The Days of Elgara's Inquisition

by TypingBosmer



Series: New Sun Rising [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Drabble Collection, Fluff and Smut, Multi, Originally Posted on Tumblr, POV Alternating, Rite of Tranquility, Slice of Life, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:40:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 19,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28893792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TypingBosmer/pseuds/TypingBosmer
Summary: A collection of ficlets written for the 31 Days of Dragon Age Tumblr prompts (out of which I only lasted for 17 days, but nonetheless). The central character is Elgara Lavellan, a 40-something city elf mage who was a Tranquil for most of her life and got cured by the Mark. Some focus is also given to her old friends from the Circle, her new recruits from the Inquisition, and her canon companions.
Relationships: Blackwall | Thom Rainier/Original Female Character(s), Dorian Pavus/Original Male Character(s), Dragon Age: Inquisition Companions & Female Inquisitor, Felix Alexius & Gereon Alexius, Felix Alexius/Original Female Character(s), Female Inquisitor & Varric Tethras, Female Lavellan & Original Male Character, Gereon Alexius & Dorian Pavus, Gereon Alexius/Female Lavellan
Series: New Sun Rising [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2119389
Kudos: 10





	1. Day 1. Hangover

Very slowly, reluctantly, Varric slips off his cot. It is one of those modest, narrow, almost pancake-flat patches of bedding that Elaina has had her people move to the cottage allotted for the Inquisition. He does not complain about the less than fancy accommodations, though. These people have been through a lot, and if it were not for the Seeker's and Shoulders' wicked sword-swooshing, the cot would have now been soaked in the blood of some poor blighter mauled by a demon wolf.

Plus, they did bring really nice quilts. Sewn out of very cheery patterned squares, downy thick, and very warm.

He has to part with the quilt now, though, and venture forth, away from the oh so welcoming, so tantalizing warmth. Having gone to sleep in nothing but his shirt, he shudders in the morning draught and pads barefoot across the room.

Every now and again he glances over his shoulder towards the door. So far so good. The Seeker - who has probably gone to wrestle some druffalo by way of morning exercise - has not come back yet. So he still has time to shake Shoulders into shape. Before she gets an earful for being irresponsible, a disgrace to the Inquisition, or some such.

'Hey', he whispers, once he reaches another cot - which is taken up by a large, faintly heaving quilt mound, with a pair of pointy ears sticking out.

'Hey Shoulders? You feeling all right?'

The mound lets out a muffled groan, and shifts to reveal the top of what looks like a pretty tangled bedhead.

Varric clicks his tongue in sympathy.

'I'll see it I can fix you up a hangover cure'.

The quilt slips a fraction further down, and two hazel eyes blink blearily at him.

'If it's meant to cleanse my body, I doubt it will help,' Shoulders says hoarsely. 'I did not... did not actually consume any alcohol last night'.

Varric frowns. Come to think of it, he did not really notice her as much as reach for a tankard of anything strong. And he does usually catch sight of who does what, out of the corner of his eye. But on the other hand, he sure recalls her giggling wildly whenever Master Dennet mentioned horse shit, and pulling his daughter into a stumbling sort of dance while young Bron watched with a pout. And then spinning right into Bron's arms, and then Elaina's, and slapping the bottom of a passing farmhand...

'You are confused, aren't you?' Shoulders asks through a wince.

She has quite a knack for pinpointing how people are feeling. It's hard not to, probably, when you have been living without emotions for twenty years, and then suddenly, weird, approximately eighty percent Andraste-related shit happens to you, and you start having all the emotions all at once all over again; and instead of being surrounded by your blank-eyed branded fellows, you are thrown into the midst of people who make all sorts of faces all the time. Snickering. Smirking. Scowling. Sulking. Raising eyebrows, quirking eyebrows, keeping eyebrows in a straight unimpressed line... Or knitting them together, like Varric is doing now.

'Yeah, you sure put me in a pickle, Shoulders; pun not intended,' Varric admits, making sure to let out a chuckle to keep things lighthearted and friendly. The poor woman needs all the friendliness she can get. Varric does not pretend to be an expert, but he remembers how broken Blondie's boyfriend sounded, how raw his suffering was, before a kind dagger put it to an end. And he was yanked out of Tranquility for no more than a couple of minutes!

'You did kind of look drunk back there'.

'It's all the happiness,' she explains weakly, burrowing back into the quilt.

'I can't control it either, same as anger, or sadness... Not yet. I was so excited to help the farmers that it went to my head... Literally. And now I have a headache'.

'Well, a little pick me up won't hurt either way,' Varric insists gently. 'Let me try all the same'.

'All right,' she sighs. 'I do need to appear functional before the Seeker. I-'

She frees one arm from her covers. A wiry, muscular arm, honed over all the time she spent secretly learning swordplay so she'd have a way to defend herself and her Circle friends from the Templars, in the absence of magic. An arm to match her shoulders, which earned her Varric's nickname. In part, at least.

With her elbow now resting on top of the quilt, she presses her hand against her forehead. Where somewhere under her tussled curls, the sun brand still marks her skin.

'I am sorry for the inconvenience'.

'Don't apologize,' Varric says, before heading back to his cot to rummage in his pack for odds and ends that might ease Shoulders' pain.

'You have had too much shit thrust on you'.

And here comes the other reason behind the nickname.


	2. Day 2. Dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is only loosely based on the Dance prompt, as it talks about combat training rather than actual dancing. You will note that Elgara, as a Tranquil, secretly mastered the blade, and still defaults to melee combat over magic. And yes, she is going to be set up to romance Alexius because that's how we roll in this house.

'Utilities are not really my specialty…'

The Inquisition's imprisoned Tevinter researcher pores diligently over the map of Skyhold. It has spread all over his tiny desk, hanging over the edges and covering some of his books so that they look like fragments of some ancient ruin, buried in pale-yellow sand.

'But I think that... If we tap into the confluence of magical energy here, here, and here, this ought to be enough to power up a few generators. And that means proper heating, and lights that do not go out at the first gust of wind, and maybe some manner of fast travel network...'

He looks up at his visitor, a thin smile ghosting across his gaunt face. Not a smile, even: a hazy memory of one. From a time when the two of them meant something to each other.

'...Like at home'.

The visitor - also a Tevinter, but younger, eager and open about helping the Inquisition, with no shadow of a cult marring his past - mirrors the smile. Touching the corners of his lips under a perfectly waxed moustacge, it does not quite reach his eyes; perhaps it could have, but he looks away before it does.

'It's good that you are keeping busy,' he says, a bit stiffly. 'Research always did make you happiest'.

'Oh come, Dorian,' the older Tevinter quips. 'It's not research; it's an assurance of our survival in this dreary southern ruin'.

'Ha! True!'

Suddenly, the chuckle that passes between them is drowned out by a loud screech and a thunderous explosion.

The sound comes from the courtyard below. The two men shuffle awkwardly towards the cell-like room's only window - a slit in the masonwork, no wider than an average elf's arm - and hover in place, straining to make out what's going on without stepping on each other's feet.

The window looks over the courtyard's back corner, and they can see the tail end of a long, deep scorch mark, with upturned earth sprinkled on either side of it, as if the ground had been broken by a giant mole. Which was also on fire.

The Inquisitor is standing beside that trail, shoulders sagging and fists curled in frustration. Her fluffy hair is standing on end, and there just may be smoke rising from it.

The older Tevinter sighs, not without sympathy. While he is not the man that Dorian once learned from, beaming whenever he caught his looks of pride - just as much when he got the same looks from his own father - he is also not the man that spat at the Inquisitor and called her a mistake.

'She still struggles with magic, doesn't she?'

Sadness coats his words like heavy, grey mist. And then, a flash of anger sears through.

'That... that barbaric rite of Tranquility really broke that part of her.'

He draws a long breath and falls silent, pondering something hidden. Something personal.

After a while, he adds,

'Her warrior training goes far more smoothly. With a clear structure; a perfect rhythm. Almost like a dance'.

He bites his tongue, a flush crawling over his cheeks. But it is too late. Dorian has already eased into the usual cheeky leaning pose against the wall, arms folded and one eyebrow raised.

'Master Gereon Alexius, have you been spying on our illustrious leader? Sighing wistfully as she flexes her muscles? You, who had the audacity to shush me when I waxed poetic about burly Qunari pirates? What will Sister Nightingale say!'

Alexius retreats hastily from the window, as though he were a bloodsucking corpse from a ghost story, and the daylight from the courtyard might turn him to ash.

'Don't be glib, Dorian. I am an old man'.

'Please, now you are just fishing for compliments! And the good Inquisitor is not exactly a blushing child, either. I never asked her exact age, that would be rude; but she did mention that before the Mark, she had been Tranquil for twenty years. So even if the Chantry had done... the deed when she was eighteen or so, that still makes her a handful of years older than me'.

'And you are still that type of youth who thinks everyone a day older than him is ancient?'

Somehow, at some point amid all that banter, the smiles have returned to the two Tevinters' faces. But this time, it is Alexius who does not allow his smile to linger. And turns away.

'I should get back to my drafts,' he says, and there is a curious thin crack running through his voice. 'The advisors expect me to report in tonight'.

Dorian jerks one shoulder in a half-shrug, and heads for the door. But before he leaves, his former mentor calls for him one last time.

'Dorian? If you... Chance to spar with the Inquisitor... Perhaps you could suggest wielding a staff the same way she wields a sword? With a structured set of moves. A rhythm of some sort that she can follow. Maybe that will help'.


	3. Day 3. Cooking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We learn some Circle backstory for Elgara and her friend, a good-hearted Templar named Ser Azar.
> 
> Azar's eventual romance is Bull, but it's only hinted at in this ficlet collection.

When she was first brought to the Circle, her eyes wide and her clothes still rumpled from all the farewell hugs of her fellow elves, he was a fresh recruit. Barely twenty. With memories of his grandfather still so clear, so vibrant before his eyes that he could swear if he'd reach ached forward, he'd meet the familiar large hand, gnarly and warm. While the familiar deep voice, with a slow cadence of the sea waves and palm tree sway at low wind, would tell him about how they do things back in Rivain. Where mages are respected. Safeguarded. Asked with reverence to share their wisdom.

And all his life, inspired by his grandfather's stories, he'd try to extend the same respect, the same reverence, the same safety, to the mages at his Circle. Starting from the wide-eyed alienage girl by the name of Elgara.

He'd learned a few things in Elvhen, to speak soothingly to whimpering, leaf-eared children when they pressed into the furthest, darkest corner at the mere glint of a Templar's cuirass. So he knew that Elgara means 'sun'. Sunshine. It was his duty then, as protector of mages, to make sure that that sunshine never faded within the tower's walls.

He could not always do that.

When she emerged from her Harrowing, a young woman now, with a squared jaw and an audacious ring in her steel-sharp voice, and announced that she'd freed the Circle's pet demon (captured in a pocket of the Fade, apparently, to test apprentices)... He tried to stand beside her, to raise his shield as she raised her lightning-thrumming fists. Because he felt she'd done the right thing; precisely the sort of thing that the Seers from his grandfather's homeland would approve of. But the other knights pushed him aside.

Promotion had been slow for a man who thought mages were people; better people, sometimes, than his own Chantry peers. He was a recruit no more - but he was not a knight of rank yet. And his voice, firm as he made it sound through his mounting panic, was drowned out. And the next time he saw Elgara, she looked up at him with a dim glaze over her eyes. Her head was shaven, to keep her hair out of the brand's way, and there was an outline of the Chantry sun, raw and still bleeding, on her forehead.

And yet the first words that came out of her mouth, monotonous as they sounded, finally made his trapped breath escape.

'I know you are distressed, Ser Azar. I do apologize. You did everything you could. I hope that we can still be friends'.

Many many, many years have passed since then. And over all those years, up until their Circle fell, they stood beside each other.

The Templar and the Tranquil. The keepers of whispered plans to make the Circle a better place. Secret sparring partners - yes, in a literal sense. Had his heart not been pledged to his duty, Azar would have given it to a man. To Elgara, he merely gave his skill in combat, training her when the other Templars were not looking. Showing her how to wield a blade; for she had no magic now, and had to live in a tower packed with people who carried swords and were itching for an excuse to use them.

And thus they passed the years. The Templar and the Tranquil. Where there was one, you would always find the other close by.

Always there to step between a mage and a knight that had forgotten his vows; always there to stop a striking hand. Always there to speak for the mages, and for their branded brothers and sisters - who were still people as well. Always there to teach those who wanted to unlearn being afraid.

And when the next time a brand was raised - over an awkward, chubby, bump-into-every-doorframe tall Tal-Vashoth foundling from a Chantry orphanage, who had turned out to be a mage and whose latent power the Circle feared - Ser Azar refused to be pushed back. A Knight Captain now, he would not be silenced. He protected the foundling - Farkhad, he had named him, after his grandfather, for he had no name of his own. Protected him to the last. To the day when their Circle shattered, and Farkhad and the other apprentices scattered to the wind. While Elgara and Azar went to the Conclave, hoping that it would bring peace.

...And now, here they are. Both serving the Inquisition. Elgara is carrying a little bit of raw Fade in the palm of her hand; and that which was severed by the brand has been restored by this little patch of green. The patch is not perfect, and she often struggles with her newfiund emotions, leaping from sobs to nigh hysterical laughter to angry hisses in a few spinning moments. But for now, she is peering over Azar's shoulder, humming in delight, while he - very dutifully, as he approaches everything he does - stirs the pot of venison stew for the soldiers and refugees in Haven.

It is supposed to be a simple meal, warm and filling. But the memory of his grandfather lingers here as well. He is now picturing those gnarly fingers scooping up pinches of spice: a sprinkle of colour for the bland southern food.

They are rather hard to obtain this far in the mountainlands; but that fascinating one-eyed Qunari warrior, crafty as he is strong, has just the contacts that Azar needed. He has obtained spices for him - 'Good thinking; can't say I am a fan of how people down here serve their meals either' - and Azar is now generously seasoning the bubbling, aromatic, richly meaty mix in the crock pot.

He inhales the waft of warmth from the stew - and Elgara does as well.

'This is delicious,' she says, overwhelmed, tears welling up in her eyes. 'And I am... Forgive me for not being articulate enough, but I... I can't describe how happy I am to - to know that it's delicious. To care about it being delicious. To care about what I smell, and taste, and... and experience. Just - just in general. I am happy to be your friend again, Azar'.

He smiles softly.

'You never stopped being my friend'.


	4. Day 4. Heirloom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, we learn about another, younger Templar from Elgara's Circle, Renée Trevelyan, disillusioned with the Chantry and seemingly headed for red lyrium consumption. Warnings for gore!

It is all a blur when the Circle falls. For a brief moment, a stupid, uninvited part of Renée's mind remembers the paintings one of her older sisters made during homeschooling classes, back when she lived at her parents' estate - before Templar training. It's as if one of such paintings had been blocked out by a huge splash of red. And then smudged into a dripping dirty blot.

There are feet running, voices screaming, armour flashing in hazy white blobs. And over it all, the rain. A sticky, sweaty drizzle that does little to put out the blaze that an errant fire ball started in the ruined tower behind Renée's back. And even less to block out the smell of charred flesh.

She stumbles ahead, something sticky churning under her feet. A mix of dirt, and blood, and soggy spilled guts turned to mush. The same residue cakes over her hands, rimming her fingernails darkly, forming scaly flakes on her skin.

She... She does not remember how it got there. Why her fingers are so stiff and the muscle in her arm aches so much from wielding her blade.

She... She may have killed someone? Was that - an apprentice mage? No, not an apprentice any more. Nigh abomination. Face contorted, eyes burning, just like the Chantry's stories forewarned... Robes splattered in the grey matter that had come bursting from a senior enchanter's skull. When they crushed it with a summoned rock.

They were trying to get to First Enchanter Lydia. Carving a bloody path towards her. To... To take out all the years of pent-up rage? That magical rage that Renée has always been so afraid of. She... She must have tried to save Lydia? Did she save her? Or did she, in her panic, decide to cut down them all?

Would - would she do that sort of thing? Is she that sort of person? She, who prays dutifully and follows her betters' orders and honours her family? Would the Chantry be pleased if she had become... that sort of person?

She does not know any more. She does not remember. It is hard to remember. It all feels like a dream.

In the distance, she thinks she can hear the voice of Ser Azar, calling for survivors to follow him to safety.

Once, in a different life, she was tense around that man. He spoke to mages with a genial ease that, according to every tenet in Renée's upbringing, was wrong.

But now, she drifts in the rain, dazed and hollow. With her hair - the fabled golden tassles, pride and joy of the Trevelyan family that only her younger, and only brother lacked - grimy and plastered all over her head and shoulders. And with her hands bloodied so deeply that the rain might never wash them clean. And with her sword arm feeling heavy, nearly at a point of tearing off.

Now, Ser Azar's voice is like a sturdy thread that the last shed of her sanity might grab on to, and follow, and...

She stops in her tracks. Reaches into the pouch at her belt. Gropes shakily among the empty, useless vials of lyrium. And felt her fingertips grow cold.

It is gone. Her little horse token - the mascot from the Trevelyan crest that her artist sister made for her, for good luck, when she left for Chantry service - it is gone. Lost somewhere in the muck. And somehow, that loss of the tiny toy horse, which accompanied her through thick and thin, strikes her as more real, more devastating, than the blood and gore all around her, in the past and the present. It's like - piece of her has been ripped out. One that she can never have back.

Crushed, and more dazed than ever, as if all her flesh had dissolved in the drizzle, she sinks to her knees and sobs. She cannot hear Ser Azar's voice any more... But she does hear the words of someone else.

'This Circle was fucked over. The Templars and mages, the whole lot. The Chantry breaks people, chews them up and casts them out. But there might be a purpose for you yet'.

As Renée lifts her eyes, another shde of red is added to the muddy palette around her. Hardened ruby crystals, growing out of the flesh of the man standing before her.


	5. Day 5. Tradition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this epistolary chapter, we follow the budding friendship (and maybe something else?) between Elgara and her imprisoned Tevinter researcher.

Dear Lord Alexius,

I hope that you have settled in properly as Inquisition researcher. The comfort of others has always mattered greatly to me, even at a time when I was unable to feel happy about ensuring such comfort. And now that I am, in fact, capable of happiness, I shall try to care for others all the harder; and yes, that does include every denizen of Skyhold, specifically yourself. You saved my life after the avalanche in Haven, and I will never forget that.

That tangent done with, thank you for agreeing to keep up correspondence with me! I find that journaling and writing letters is a fine tradition that keeps the mind occupied. And we do need distractions from our thoughts, do we not?

The requisition for your magical components has been fulfilled, and I am expecting the agents with the shipment to reach you well ahead of my arrival at Skyhold. I will be honoured and excited to see how you put them to use! Which is probably a cheap compliment, given that excitement is easy to come to me these days, just as any other emotion. But I say so sincerely nonetheless.

The agents may also bring news of how I have conquered the Storm Coast, or some such lofty praise. The truth is far less heroic, and perhaps might make you smile.

Yes, I did recruit the most curious band of warriors calling themselves the Blades of Hessarian, and managed to steer them from common pillaging (which is what their former chief had them do) to scouting the cost to benefit the Inquisition. I did that by respecting the Blades' custom and challenging the said chief to single combat. I thought that it would be an honourable thing to do.

But just as I stepped forth to face the chief - a giant of a man, whose plaid shirt nigh ripped across his chest, underneath a most bushy, spade-like beard - he set his hounds on me.

I am certain they were fine hounds: very good boys, as some of my companions would say. Good boys that were, perhaps, suffering at the hand of their master, for he struck me as the type of man to throw his boot at anyone who makes the slightest noise in his presence. But the unflattering, and most unsouthern, truth about me is that I am terrified of dogs. Or used to be terrified of them as a child, at any rate. You and I talked at length about the treatment of my people in my homeland and yours; I trust it takes no stretch of imagination to deduce why an elf would be wary of dogs. So I will not dwell on it in depth, as the sheer thought makes my hand shake even now, and I might spiral into one of my moods.

I do beg your pardon. This was meant to be a lighthearted anecdote. Long story short, overwhelmed by the memories of how the braying of hounds used to terrify me back at the alienage, I froze... And suddenly released a surge of magic, which shaped the earth underneath my feet into huge green mossy pillars. The pillars shot up at a breakneck speed, erupting right under the poor hounds' feet, and sent them catapulting through the air, with a lot of terrified yelping! I am told that they were found stuck in a nearby tree later, like a flock of very confused, panting, four-legged birds.

The Blades' chief, in the meanwhile, was so stupefied by how his dogs had been dispatched, that it did not prove too hard for me to overcome him in melee combat.

I do hope that the mental image of flying dogs and gawking giant bearded men proves amusing. Imagining you smile will make me smile as well.

Now, as for the Blades themselves, they do have some interesting lore to offer. While reduced to banditry under former leadership, they stem from a splinter Chantry group that reveres the figure of Archon Hessarian, and puts great emphasis on how he changed his view of Andraste during Her final moments. I find all of this immensely fascinating, and will be researching the matter further. Perhaps, in a fit of hubris, I feel a personal connection to the story? Since I am, after all, expected to follow in Her footsteps - while a good associate of mine is a Tevinter mage who had a change of heart about being my enemy.

It is something to ponder; and perhaps converse about in person.

I await our next meeting eagerly.

Elgara Lavellan

***

Dear Lady Lavellan,

Perhaps it is unnecessary for me to pen this, and you will return to Skyhold before receiving the letter. At least, I selfishly hope that you do, as I feel that I have been unappreciative of your graciousness during our previous conversations, and would like to rectify that as soon as possible.

At the same time, there is an odd sort of joy to be found, imagining you open my correspondence as I did yours. You are right, there is much pleasant distraction to be found in writing letters; and I do still have heavy thoughts that I need to keep at bay. But you need not concern yourself so; much as I am humbled by your attention, there are worthier people in Skyhold that need it.

Other than that, my current situation is quite agreeable. I am still under heavy supervision, and my forays into the now foreign realm of fresh outdoor air hinge heavily upon how much the Spymaster is pleased with the results of my work and my general behaviour. Though I do suspect that I would have been treated with a much greater severity, had it not been for that incident in the mountains. Back then, I scarcely knew what compelled me to linger by your side, and heal the injuries you had sustained at the hands of ~~The Elder One~~ Corypheus - rather than attempt to flee the Inquisition's wrath. But I am grateful to whatever force is at play here - I scarcely believe in higher powers now, and speaking of providence would be insensitive, given how I tricked Grand Enchanter Fiona - that I listened to that inner voice, even at the risk of recapture. I doubt that my work for the Inquisition will amount to anything, as I am naught but a failure by nature, but the sheer act of trying does not feel as hollow as it used to. 

Thank you for giving me this opportunity. I told you once that a headsman would have been kinder - that was unnecessarily harsh, and a most unworthy response to your mercy. Your kindness is never cheap, I assure you. It touches my tired old heart like few things do these days.

Thank you also for being so frank with me about your fears and your pain, little as I deserve being confided in. I do understand what you spoke of regarding the hounds, and I feel like whatever regret and sympathy I have to offer will fall flat when rendered on paper. I shall express myself fully once we meet; in here, I shall merely say that I hope that at least one of us - you - lives to see a world where your people are not treated with such cruelty. Perhaps through the effort of younger, better people who will carry on where my own work as a magister came to an end.

I did smile at your little hound escapade, thank you! Though it does worry me that you subjected yourself to such danger. Perhaps you will find it paradoxical, as I myself used to be a source of danger to you; yet it is true. Do keep yourself safe, and perhaps keep an eye on Dorian? For the sake of the world you are protecting, first and foremost.

As for Archon Hessarian, Tevinter does have extensive literature on him, the list of which I am happily attaching for your convenience. You might exercise some cunning to obtain certain volumes, however, as I imagine they would not be readily available to southerners. The Skyhold library is, again, somewhat wanting in that regard. As Dorian tossing books back and forth would attest.

Just about the only book I could find was Hessarian's Spear, which is a wildly historically inaccurate account - I believe the term Master Tethras is using is 'fan fiction' - of a romance that ostensibly occurred between Andraste and Hessarian. Except that it obviously did not!

This is honestly the manner of questionable smutty literature that (from the stories you tell of her) your Seeker friend might have enjoyed, were it not insulting to her beliefs. You and I, though, should probably stay away from that book, especially if you do me the great honour of likening our companionship to that of Andraste and the Archon. I would never - great emphasis on never - debase it like that! Once again, never!

[a few blacked out lines follow]

Forgive me. My tone got heated. It is I who has moods, not you. Never you. Your strength in overcoming the consequences of what the Chantry did to you is nothing but admirable.

I dare hope that we will see each other soon.

With the utmost respect,

Gereon Alexius


	6. Day 6. Routine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter gives us a glimpse of the hesitant bonding between a mage from Elgara's Circle, Trevelyan Barris, and Dorian.

The fires on the roadside - traces of clashes between mages and Templars - have simmered down now.

The longsuffering town of Redcliffe is settling back into uneventful slumber, which will hopefully remain undisturbed by walking dead, or fleeing rebels, or invading Tevinters for many years to come.

The war is over - this particular war, at any rate; there is still much blood dripping into the soil of Thedas.

Both sides of the fight, if they have not been irrevocably corrupted by darkness, are flocking to Skyhold. And as the mages settle in their new tower, and the former Templars in their new barracks, Inquisitor Lavellan, once a Circle mage herself, is seeing the return of some familiar faces. The people that she once knew when she was a Tranquil, locked in the walls of the Ostwick Tower.

Renée Trevelyan, a golden-haired, very devout little Andrastian who was very serious about upholding the Circle - until it fell - cannot be found anywhere. Rumours say that she was last seen marching with the red Templars, her face hardened and her hair shorn.

So all that Lady Lavellan can hope for is that Renée was not among the wheezing, snarling, contorted red husks that crawled all over Haven and had to be felled by her hand.

But at least, some of her favourite magelings are here. Well, as favourite as they can be, since she could not feel anything towards them for most of the time they knew each other.

There's Farkhad Adaar, a horned foundling that barely escaped Tranquility himself, for the Circle enchanters were picturing the horror stories about Qunari Saarebas far too vividly, and were far too convinced that they would come true if the 'oxman' were allowed to be Harrowed.

He is not an oxman, though, is he? More like a lamb man, with curling horns and broad forehead and the meekest look in his eyes. As soft and shy as she remembers. Well, perhaps here, in this castle, where mages are not warded off in fear any more, he will be able to blossom.

And there's the Barris boy; the third son, and younger brother to Ser Delrin. His name is Trevelyan, Trev for short: Bann Barris named him after a family friend, the father of Renée. The three of them played together as children, as Trev recollects sometimes, but did all not end up at the same Circle when Trev's magic awoke and Delrin and Renée were given to Chantry service. Delrin did not follow his brother and friend to the Free Marches, and Renée... Renée is not here. Perhaps she never will be.

But even with her gone, the brothers are reunited at least. They found each other in Val Royeaux, and Delrin swept Trev off on an investigation of a mystery most haunting, and most gruesome.

They came to Skyhold together from Therinfal redoubt. Leading a scant handful of survivors, travel-worn and with wild, bruised eyes that were still cast in the shadow of nightmares. They bore news that an Envy demon - a grotesque creature with the limbs of a flesh-covered mosquito, and the hungry, bloodied mouth of a parasitic worm - had crawled under Lord Seeker Lucius' skin; and that the Templar officers had slaked their thirst for lyrium with a corrosive, pulsing bloody red, which soon overtook their minds and bodies.

The untainted Templar rank and file laid down their Chantry-marked shields, and, following the example of Commander Cullen, now fight for the Inquisition. And Trev, the lone mage in their group, who needs 'lots and lots of peace and quiet' - as Delrin insisted, brow laden with a frown that obviously meant something to the survivors of Therinfal - can now be found every day at the Skyhold garden.

He tends to the plants there; he has always loved plants, trying his best to care for a wispy little potted friend even within the walls of the Circle. This has quickly turned into a routine for him, and he appears to have settled into it with carefree ease.

Every day, he walks busily back and forth, clipping and snipping. Carrying water from a nearby well in a silvery, undulating, magic-borne orb, no bucket needed (that was something he heard the young almost-magister Pavus propose in jest, and took it to heart). And bending down to soften the flowerbeds with a subtle pulse of magic that spreads from his fingertips in a gentle green pulse (that was something he picked up from Her Ladyship's advisor, Solas).

There is a smile on his face, and a keen light in his eyes. Almost always. All part of his routine.

But sometimes, the well-practiced bustle in the garden screeches to a halt, like machinery with a snag in the belt. Young Trev freezes, and backs away into a shaded corner of the gallery where no-one can see him. With a series of erratic breaths, he clasps his fingers around his throat, while his eyes redden and burn with salty moisture.

This is not unlike what Lady Lavellan does when emotions get the better of her recently Tranquil mind. But Trev is not Tranquil; he was successfully Harrowed shortly before their Circle fell. There is something else there, something that he scarcely confides into anyone, except perhaps his brother, with that knowing frown of his...

...And also someone entirely unexpected.

One day, when his routine is, yet again, disrupted, and he has to flee into the shadows of the gallery, Trev bumps into a (self-described) most dashing figure in a one-sleeved silken robe.

'Lord Pavus!' Trev cries out, trying to back away and instead treading on the Tevinter's finely adorned boots a few times. His complexion is not one that easily betrays a blush; but, given how his breathing becomes even more rapid, he does look like he has poked his head into a good old Fereldan sauna.

'I - I did not see you there'.

'I have had worse encounters in back corners,' the Tevinter responds, with a sly smirk... Which promptly fades, as he notes the wetness in Trev's eyes.

'It really was nothing, my good man! No reason to be so upset! I swear I will not be setting you on fire, or whatever nonsense they have been telling you'.

'Oh'.

Trev swallows and wipes his eyes.

'It's not that; I just have a lot on my mind'.

'It goes around these days,' Lord Pavus notes.

For a heartbeat or two, there is silence; the Tevinter searches Trev's expression again, and adds, more sincerely,

'You could try approaching the Inquisitor. You two know each other, do you not? She has quite a fondness for sorting through other people's emotions'.

Trev bites his lips.

'I know; it's just... I am worried it will be too much for her... She has a lot to cope with, and that thing, on my mind, it... It involves a demon'.

He exhales shakily and blurts out with no warning, his hands clawing at his temples,

'A demon that wore the Lord Seeker's face! I had to fight it inside my own mind to keep it from killing my brother! It showed me the darkest side of me; an abomination with solid black eyes and an echoing, metallic laugh... I saw myself crush my brother's windpipe, and get the remnants of my old Circle possessed by demons - and... and I am horrified that there is something in there, inside me, something that the demon grabbed onto. A blot of darkness that it blew out of proportion!'

The Tevinter creases his forehead. A ray of light glides across the courtyard and fills his eyes with a reflective shimmer. Pure silver glinting in the dark.

'I have known men that carried darkness inside. You do not strike me as one of them'.

Trev looks up at him, desperate to hold on to that shimmer. Yet also... hesitant.

'You don't know me well, Lord Pavus'.

'I could get to know you better,' the Tevinter responds. There is a practiced coyness in his voice - also, perhaps, part of a routine - but his eyes widen by the end of the sentence. As though he were afraid of what just escaped his lips.

'Come. Sit with me,' he says softly. 'I am no Inquisitor, but I can try to listen. Maker knows I have also been on quite a nightmarish journey not too long ago'.


	7. Day 7. Injustice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Instead of collecting shards, Elgara and her friends do something entirely different with the Oculara.

They strike from afar. They always do.

Elgara cannot bear standing close to one of these hilltop constructs. Because she is always lured in, as if sucked into a dark, airless vortex, by the whispers that coil in ghostly streaks from the mounted skull.

She is always compelled to try and listen, to discern coherent words, individual voices... Perhaps the voice of the skull's owner? A person, once: a person like her, with the sunburst mark on their forehead, with their emotions sealed away.

She always wonders if it all came rushing back to them, a torrent of confusion and heartbreak and anger, when the demon was forced into them, pushing down their throat, taking root in their lungs, kneading the tissue of their frenzied heart into bloody pulp. She always wonders if they felt anything - in addition to the screeching agony of their physical transformation - in those final moments before the Venatori struck them down.

And the more she wonders, the more her own emotions, unsealed, unhinged by the Mark, broil within her. As if she were grappling with a demon of her own.

She cannot bear it. She tried to, feeling that she was selfishly betraying her former brethren by avoiding their remains. But she cannot. So now, whenever they come across a hilltop skull, they strike at it from afar.

They travel extensively in search of the Oculara, along the roads and the thread-thin paths and the barely visible trails in the wilds - her and Vivienne. Sometimes, the Tevinter captive, Alexius, is there with them. He was supposed to dispatch the Hinterland branch of the Venatori on the hunt for the Tranquil, but, even when deeply ensnared by Corypheus, he always felt uneasy about this part of the Grand Scheme. So he tried to push the Tranquil out of Redcliffe, to get them to scatter across the land before it was too late - little short of screaming 'Fly, you fools!' at them. And the first thing that he shared with the Inquisition upon being conscripted was a key to the little hut in Redcliffe, packed to the roof with Tranquil skulls and Oculara bases, and with paperwork on obtaining more.

Whenever he joins the two women on their quest, Elgara can sense the guilt oozing off him like slurping black tar. She is not... unappreciative of it, really - she has always found Alexius rather sympathetic. But right here, right now, in these moments when she faces yet another Ocularum - from afar, always from afar! - she scarcely brings herself to care for what he is feeling. She is too consumed by anger and pain and the silent wail that rips through her chest. She thinks Alexius understands that... And she is not unappreciative of it either.

Regardless of who travels with her, they know what needs to be done. From afar.

From afar, one mage strikes, with a firebolt or a hissing, spitting whip of lightning. This makes the base crumble along the middle, split by the charred zigzag of a crack. Before it topples completely, bringing the skull down with it, one of the other mages casts forth a translucent green loop of telekinetic energy. A tug at that loop, and the skull whizzes closer, travelling through the air across all this distance until it eventually winds up in the caster's grasp. 

Sometimes, if the terrain is too tricky and the spell is hard to calculate, the other mage - never Elgara, for she fears the whispers - Fade steps instead, vanishing in silvery blue smoke and then reappearing near the Ocularum, only to melt into smoke again and bring the skull to Elgara.

Once the skull is off its base, and the whispers fall silent, Elgara and her companions examine the skull. The teeth specifically. There are many stories to be told by teeth. Perhaps the Tranquil, when alive, had a tooth chipped off or removed. Perhaps records of that - which have to have existed, as southern Circles were very... particular about the comings and goings of their inmates, mages or otherwise - survived the ravage of war and demons. And if so, perhaps it is possible to match the skull to a name. A personal history. A human or elven being.

Sometimes, upon Alexius' request, Dorian also attempts to use necromancy to reconstruct the features of the dead Tranquil: a three-dimensional image, woven out of countless fine glowing purple threads, and overlaying the barren bones. A nose over the sunken slits of the skull's nostrils; a pair of eyes looking out of the dark sockets; strands of hair trailing along the polished white cranial dome.

If this ghostly likeness is recognized by anyone from among the rebel mages, or a merchant or refugee taking shelter in Skyhold - maybe a noble, even, for Tranquil rune crafters have always been in demand at various courts - that is also a success.

That means that Elgara knows whom to bury. Whose name to ask Skyhold's stone masons to carve into the gravestone over their ash. Whose family to write to, if any survives. Whose soul to light a candle for, kneeling at Andraste's feet in the slanting red and green rays passing through stained glass. And also, plant a tree sapling for, if they were an elf.

She cannot find a name, a family, a personal prayer for every skull. Not yet. But she keeps trying. She keeps honouring their memory - precisely as she would do for any of her Inquisition's fallen soldiers.

After all... The sun brand is only skin deep. You cannot even tell the difference between a Tranquil and a person yet in touch with the Fade, an apostate and a Templar, a magister and a slave, if all you are holding in your hands is a skull.


	8. Day 8. Childhood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What better way to redeem a tired old villain than to surround him with kids and cute animals whom he grows protective of?

It all begins with a trifle. A small, trivial occurrence. A man sits down at a table in the Skyhold library, surrounding himself with books. He wears a Circle robe, like many mages in the Inquisition still to, never having owned any other clothes in their life - but is looks stiff on him. Unfamiliar. And when he reaches for a quill to copy a passage from one of his books, his sleeve slips back, revealing a deep, almost maroon indentation encircling his wrist. The trace of shackles.

This has to be the magister; the one from Redcliffe. Imprisoned by Her Ladyship for his many, many crimes, accounts of which vary, depending on the source and the amount of ale involved. There are people who say that he wanted to turn the world inside out, to shove the sun deep into the bowels of the earth and to replace the starry, twinkling dome of the sky with the rock-solid, completely dark dome of a cave.

He walks almost free now, for good behaviour or some such - but most people still give him a wide berth. Other mages, especially. After all, there are also people who say that he came south to drink mage blood. To make himself stronger. He'd have started with important mages, like Grand Enchanter Fiona, and finished up with tiny apprentices for dessert.

The only other person in the library does not seem at all concerned about it, though - even if she is, herself, a tiny apprentice, in a Circle robe of her own, with patches on her elbows, which she has spread out wide on her table, busily colouring in a pencil drawing.

Perhaps she is not from Redcliffe, where most of the rumours about the magister started. Or perhaps she is just too absorbed by her task, humming to herself and kicking her legs back and forth under the table - where they do not quite reach the floor - to notice that she has company.

She only becomes distracted by what would distract any child. A cat.

It's one of the many cats that inhabit Skyhold, flocking to the kitchen for leftovers and sometimes feigning to catch rats. He has a glossy black coat, with a fee patches of orange, like gilding.

Tail raised up with an air of utmost self-importance, he trots up to the child and sniffs the hand that she had extended for him, baited breath erupting in squeals and eyes nigh on sparkling. He bumps the soft round top of his forehead against the child's fingers, and then, with a Meep! of curiosity, walks over to the magister, to rub against his legs.

Unlike the child, the grown-up does not look up. But even as he remains focused on his reading and his scribbling, he does something that for him, perhaps, is also a trifle. And for the child, is the most fantastical thing in the world.

Eyes still darting back and forth along the lines in his book, he lays his quill aside for a moment, and snaps his fingers. At his command, a little circle of reddish light flickers into being, gliding down towards the floor, where is freezes - and then jerks into motion again, leaping, dancing, enticing the cat to play. With his little cheeks puffing up and every whisker on his face bristling, the cat springs to action. He stalks the circle of light, and claws at it, and makes nearly incessant noises of excitement.

The magister does not turn to watch, but his lips twitch into a smirk. The child, on the other hand, watches with scarcely a blink. Entranced.

'How did you do that?' she asks - and the magister glances up at last.

His eyes look tired - perhaps from all the reading, perhaps from something else - and his voice is curt and a little hoarse.

'I am a mage,' he says simply, and clearly intends to go back to work.

But the child does not let him.

'I am a mage too,' she persists, after slipping off her chair and walking up to him.

'So they always told me. But I never saw anyone use magic like that, kid or adult. They say that magic is a very, very dangerous thing - like having knives for fingers. You have to be really careful with it, unless you wanna hurt someone'.

The magister's book seems to shut itself on its own accord, with a very loud, outraged snap.

'Knives for fingers,' he echoes under his breath. 'What kind of nonsense do you waste your childhood on?'

The child crinkles her forehead, confused.

'How would you call it, then? If not knives?'

'A whole bloody toolbox!' the magister exclaims impatiently.

The child edges even closer, waiting for an explanation... And he gives in.

'Here. Let me show you'.

What begins with a trifle - a man walking into the library to research, and a child to draw - soon turns into a whole series of lessons. How to bend rays of light if they are too bright and get in your eyes. How to grab at things out of your reach with snares of green light without moving from your seat. How to trace a glyph on the bottom of something heavy to make it float, feather-like, so you don't have to lug around huge srucks of books or what have you, knees buckling.

It's not the sort of lessons that a dutiful little southern mageling should take to heart - a heart that must always remain fearful of demons. But the child relishes in them, leaping at the little bits of knowledge like a cat at play. And eventually, she brings a friend. A tiny elven boy who looks like a pair of ears sticking out of a walking heap of oversized clothes.

'He can't talk,' the child explains. 'The enchanter taught him to sign, but his hands are too small, and people seldom pay attention to him. So we reckoned, if he conjured pictures of what he's saying, people would notice. Can you teach him?'

'Of course,' says the magister - in a voice that is longer hoarse, just as his eyes are no longer tired.

'If you, my friends, teach me the southern sign language. I had to use signs for some students of mine, but I believe the system is different in Tevinter'.

The little elf starts fearfully when he sees the magister's lips shape the dreaded word, but the other child squeezes his shoulder reassuringly.

'It's all right,' she tells him with the swift motions of her hands, after letting him go. 'He is nice'.

The magister frowns.

'You have every right to be afraid. You can leave, too, if my presence frightens you'.

But the elf shakes his head. And he stays.

He stays the next day, too. And the next. He stays for as long as it takes for him to build up a whole vocabulary of glowing, glyph-like pictures, which he traces in the air with his tiny hands. To illustrate his signs, at first. And then, just for fun.

This cannot but draw the attention of other children. And soon enough, a whole crowd gathers around the magister. Clamouring for lessons in magic; for 'awesome' spells that they have never seen in the south; for answers for a multitude of 'How?'s and 'Why?'s. And one toddler, while technically a mage as well, is too small to learn much of anything, and prefers to hug the magister's leg and ride on it. While the cat, ever so curious, comes to curve his back against the other.

Soon enough, someone is bound to come along and disrupt their little gathering. Someone sensible and proper; someone who still remembers the lessons of the Chantry, and sees dangerous, bleeding knives whenever they look at the hands of a mage. Especially one from Tevinter.

But for now, the magister teaches, and the children learn, and the cat plays lazily with the hems of their robes. And the library - most unfittingly, some would say - is filled with laughter.


	9. Day 9. Confession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As I mentioned before, the central romance in this ficlet series is Inquisitor/Alexius! Hopefully, there is enough feelz in this angsty chapter to give it some credibility.

It does not matter, he tells himself, before forcing his wandering, almost literally roseate gaze away from the Lady Inquisitor. He has to respect her privacy so she can talk to her kin from the alienage; catch up after nearly thirty years apart; hold them close; listen to their gleeful chorus of voices, which rings with laugher and tears of bittersweet joy; return their laughter with her own, while her own tears stream from her eyes - so shining, so beautiful... It does not matter.

It does not matter, he chants like a mantra through gritted teeth, gripping his horse's reins so tightly that the leather slashes through his flesh. While the Inquisitor says her last goodbyes, sealing a lingering kiss on the forehead of so many elves that flock around her: mothers, and neighbours, and friends that must have been children when she left, and now have children of their own. Some of them were enthused enough to join the Inquisition, where he knows they will be treated with compassion and respect - and with these new recruits in their ranks, the soldiers mount, and begin their journey back.

It is a swift ride, now that he and Dagna the Arcanist have designed enhanced runestones horseshoes that increase travelling speed so much that it feels like leaping from one point on the map to the other - Wycome to Skyhold in this case - in a single blink. Yet to him, tonight, this leap stretches into an eternity. Filled with the same words that he stabs into himself, and twists deeper and deeper, till his heart begins to bleed, whenever he catches a glimpse of the Inquisitor's face.

It does not matter. Why should it matter?

What matters is that they succeeded.

They stopped a Venatori conspiracy from destroying Wycome, like it nearly destroyed Redcliffe.

They shielded the alienage where the Inquisitor grew up, where she still has family, from a purge. Which would have been imminent. For the hooded vipers that had coiled around the local Duke - his kind, he should never forget that - had spun a lie that the elves carried a plague... While in reality, the sickness was being caused by red lyrium crystals on the bottom of the town wells. Used only by humans, incidentally.

He supposes that the Inquisition did those... 'proper townsfolk' a favour as well, by cleansing their water supply. Though quite a few of them hardly deserved it, ready as they were to lead a screaming, torch-wielding mob into the alienage.

They stopped that mob. This is what matters. Not that... little incident that happened when the last of the Venatori were captured, and the alienage let out the breath that it had been collectively holding.

He mustn't dwell on it. He mustn't. Yes, when the Inquisitor, as profoundly relieved as the rest of her people, turned to face the Inquisition ranks with triumphant laughter, she... She kissed him. But there was no special meaning behind that, surely.

Why would there be? Sure not because he himself has been yearning for her touch for weeks, feeling a sweet pain pool in the pit of his stomach whenever her fingers accidentally brushed against his during a shared research session? Or because he has grown to... cherish this woman, once his nemesis and now his benefactor and unlikely friend?

Because, while he still mourns his wife, there is something stirring in the hollow of the wound she left behind? Something new and vulnerable, like a nascent blossom?

Why should the Inquisitor care for any of this? Why should she care for him? There are plenty of worthier people around her than Gereon Alexius, magister in disgrace and the Inquisition's imprisoned researcher.

He - he should not even have been here, strictly speaking. He had volunteered to come because he felt... He felt that it would be the right thing to do - risking his life to help her family, after he had nearly killed her to try and salvage his. Not to mention that, ever since the Inquisitor's advisors had received news of the Wycome crisis, he had felt it in his bones that the Venatori had to be involved somehow. Good thing that his bones have proved to be useful for something else than aching when the weather is about to change.

But even though he tagged along, he tried to do that inauspiciously. He did not want the alienage to know that a Tevinter noble - even if an exiled one - was among those fighting the town's corruption. It was cowardly, perhaps - but he did prefer to remain a nameless, featureless scout, one among many. A background extra, quietly aiding the Inquisitor as she saved the day.

So really, when she turned to him and tugged at his vest to pull him closer, and met his lips with hers... There could have been anyone in his place! Anyone at all. It could have been Scout Jim, for Maker's sake!

It does not matter.

She was simply feeling elated, impulsive, full of excitement that needed an outlet. Like she always does at such emotional moments. It was but a lingering ripple of the effect Tranquility reversal has had on her. Nothing more.

In fact, if he had given in, if he had prolonged the kiss, he would have been taken advantage of her. Like kissing someone intoxicated.

So he should not dwell on it. He should not. It does not bloody matter!

'Lord Alexius? Do you have a moment? I wanted to speak to you'.

He nearly jumps.

By now, they have already arrived at the castle, and he has retreated to his quarters to unpack - mechanically, as if sleepwalking, with his mind still consumed by that drumming rhythm. It does not matter. Does not matter. Does not matter.

And yet, here she stands, on the threshold of his little room in the turret over the courtyard (where he has so often watched her train, breathless with admiration and longing). The deeply pink, pre-dusk sun beams that slant through the narrow window highlight her features. The tall brow, framed by loose brown-and-silver curls that half-shield that glaring Chantry brand; the broad, slightly curving nose bridge; the delicate bow of her lips... Damn it all, why can't he stop noticing how beautiful she is?!

'Of course,' he hears himself choke out. 'Whatever you need'.

She tilts her head in a swift nod, as if encouraging herself.

'Very well. You, I dare hope, are my friend, so I will allow myself to be blunt. What I wish to discuss is... The kiss I gave you'.

The floor lurches momentarily from under his feet, but he composes himself.

'If you fear I was offended by it, please rest assured that I was not! Not in the slightest! I understand that you acted in the heat of the moment, and - '

She raises her hand, palm forward, letting him know that she wants to speak.

'I did. But that does not erase the fact how I feel about you'.

He has to back away a couple of paces and take a breath before he manages to return to a perfectly collected, gentlemanly demeanour.

'Whatever your feelings, I promise that I shall respect them, Lady Lavellan'.

That is no lie. He knows how important feelings are for her, a former Tranquil.

'And I thank you for sharing them with me'.

'Good,' she stares him straight in the eye, with a burning intensity.

'Because I think that you are very attractive; that your life has left a mark on your face that I long for so much...'

Amid the thundering of his heart, he attempts to collect his thoughts. He believes she mentioned this before: over twenty years as a Tranquil, she developed very few expression lines, yet finds them beautiful in other people. Him... Included?

'I enjoy your company greatly. And, selfish as it sounds, seeing you rediscover happiness makes me happy as well... Which draws me to you even more. I would very much like us to be lovers, if you will have me'.

Have you? Kaffas, woman, I will have you on the bloody war table if you command me!

He cannot stop these frank, lurid thoughts from rushing into his mind - nor can he stop the blood from rushing to his cheeks.

'As it happens...' he says, somehow mustering a smirk, while his feet carry him back towards her, weightless.

'I quite return your feelings. I have been enamoured with you for a while - perhaps since the moment you first visited me here after my judgement. I just never thought you would find it appropriate'.

'I think I am becoming quite infamous for inappropriate behaviour,' she says with a laugh. 'Given how many people I keep trying to befriend'.

'Most successfully,' he murmurs - now so close to her that all he needs to do is wrap his arm around her waist... And kiss her in return.


	10. Day 10. Festival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bit of backstory for Shoshana Cadash, a surface dwarf and student at the University of Orlais whom I ship with Felix.

Shoshana has always felt out of place during Satinalia. It is, after all, a human holiday. And her parents still revere the Stone, in their own way. They keep trying to find an echo of Her song in the clopping of horse hooves against the city cobblestones, and in the rustles and sighs within the walls of their little house - cornerstone on the ground floor, bedrooms on the first - in the dead of night (Shoshana really thinks it's just mice, but if Mama considers it a good omen, she won't argue).

As for Shoshana herself, she does not really know what to believe. She is too many generations removed from Orzammar, from its ancient stories and sunless dark. What if she offends the Stone by following her parents' example and invoking Her name?

And the human Chantry... It's pretty, she supposes, from a distance. The singing on feast days is lovely, making it hard not to tear up from the sheer melody, even if the voices don't carry the deep meaning that they would for a human. And she imagines that the sunlight makes most enchanting coloured patterns as it passes through the stained glass. But she has never dared approach close enough for the Sisters to spot her. Would they have chased her off if she tried, screaming something or other about dwarves not being wanted by their Maker? She rather believes they would.

Anyway. If there's one thing she is absolutely certain about, it's that Satinalia is not meant for her.

For her, it is merely the time to return home, to her parents' store, when the other university students hurry off to their festive hearths, and the echoes of footsteps in the vaulted marble hallways are swallowed by a clean, pale kind of silence.

For her, it is the time to set down her bag of books and push her reading glasses up her forehead, and roll up her sleeves and put on a pleasant customer service face like she did as a teenager.

Her parents need her help at the store: humans give each other gifts during this season, and quite a few of them decide to get theirs at Cadash's Odds And Ends.

Which is all well and good, but humans are an impatient lot; and their intellect seems to diminish the more impatient they get.

'Why is your shelf with this fabric labelled F? Does F stand for Ferelden?'

'...F is for Flax, m'am. In the Trade Tongue'.

'Tsk; you are trying to sell me the garb of dog lord peasants, aren't you?'

...

'You don't look so competent, girl; I want to speak about this to the owner. This gift is too important!'

'The owner is busy at the moment, Messere. I am her daughter; you can address all concerns to me'.

'A very convenient thing to say!'

...

'This music box - does it play only one song? The Empress of Fire?'

'Yes, ser. That is how music boxes work, ser'.

'Ah - but I will have a cousin visiting on Satinalia, and he supports Gaspard. Quite a quirk, yes - but we are not letting politics divide our family! Would you make it so that the music box plays something else while he is around?'

'I am afraid that it can't be done, ser. Might I suggest a music box with a different melody?'

'But I like this one!'

...

With time, as the hours drag on towards an early, misty dusk, the zest in her tone fades, and her face begins to ache from being stretched into a smile for so long. But at long last, the customers leave, laden with brightly tinted boxes, with ribbons and tinsel training after them across the fine down of snow. The door slides shut, with a soft tinkle of the bell, and Mama changes the sign from Open to Closed, while Shoshana breathes a covert sigh of relief.

This is what Satinalia means for her. Watching others leave. Helping them prepare for their family celebrations as a detached, polite outsider - and then always, always watching them leave.

She presses her eyes shut tightly and then opens then again. Hoping that they are not too wet.

Mama passes by, wiping her hands on her apron, and freezes a few steps away from Shoshana.

'Are you all right, sweetie? I know this time of the year is difficult for you...'

'I'm fine,' she says, more hoarsely, and more briskly, than she intended. 'I'll go up to my room now; they gave us a lot of homework for the holidays. Graduating year and all'.

'Of course, sweetie,' Mama says, sounding like she is about to burst into tears herself. 'You are so smart, and I am so proud of you! And Shoshi...'

Her voice shatters, and her hands fly up from her crumpled apron to her chest.

'I am so sorry! If I hadn't broken my leg that year...'

'It's all right, Mama. It's not your fault'.

It truly isn't. It's not her fault that she slipped on the glazed pavement during the advent of another Satinalia - what seems like an eternity ago. That Papa had to beg Shoshana to come help at the store that particular year, too, instead of taking a break and going to Tevinter.

For a while, it seemed to her that her parents were relieved that the trip did not work out. Being a dwarf in the Imperium is nowhere as dangerous as being an elf - but Shoshana would still sense that they were more than a little frightened to let her go, try as they might to hide it.

But now... now they keep going in tentative circles round her, Mama especially, while the air around them condenses with palpable, tar-like guilt. Because the person whom Shoshana was supposed to be travelling with, and who headed there on his own - 'Of course, I understand! Family comes first! I will write to you!' - never came back.

She missed her chance to spend the holidays with him... And he never came back.

Even as the days melted into weeks, and the last remnants of Satinalia thawed away under the sun flare of spring, he never came back.

'I am sorry if it sounds harsh, my dear,' Papa said one morning, when the sun flare grew bright and gold, and the spring turned to summer, and Shoshana came home again.

'But maybe he got over you? I mean, you are the sweetest, most beautiful girl - but he is a noble, isn't he? The son of a...'

He lowered his voice fearfully.

'...Of a magister? That's rather the way of nobles: find a kind soul like you, have fun with them, and then move on to someone else... Thank the Stone he did not hurt you, at least! I'd often lie awake at night, fearing he would!'

Shoshana clenched her jaw, projecting all the burning pain inside of her into stabbing her baked potato.

'Even if he did that...'

...Which was impossible; she knew it was. He was not the kind of person to seek the 'fun' Papa was talking about.

But Mama and Papa, with their oohing and aahing over what a late bloomer their daughter was, always with her head in her books and no time for boys or girls - they would not understand.

They would not understand how happiness had swept over her in a tidal wave; how tightly she'd hugged him, sobbing in relief into his vest - when, after their first, fluttering kiss, he'd mumbled,

'Shoshana, I... I really do care for you, but I think I ought to let you know... The more intimate side of love, it's... I am not very comfortable with it. I never was. That is, I appreciate it in theory; my parents enjoy it very much, as do most of my friends, and I do not begrudge them that. I just... Cannot get personally, uh, invested. If you want to give it a try, I'll do my best, but... If I ever seem distant or disinterested, it's not because... there's something wrong with you, or I do not care for you enough. I swear'.

'Oh - oh! I am like that too! Oh, Felix, I thought I was the only person in the world who felt this way!'

...They would not understand, her Mama and Papa. So when that conversation happened at the dinner table, in the golden haze of summer's light, she clenched her jaw, and stabbed her potato, and said,

'Even if he did get over me, he'd have to come back to Orlais to finish his degree, wouldn't he?'

But he did not. He never came back.

And then, at the start of the next term, an apparition manifested out of nowhere in the university dorm's common area. A glowing, transculent figure, like an ice sculpture come alive. It was a human man, with a very distinct profile and a curled moustache. After moulding into being, he cleared his throat with dramatic emphasis, and gave a once-over to the slack-jawed, huge-eyed students (some of whom had slid off from their chairs to the floor, too petrified by his unannounced arrival).

'Yes, I know I am stunning,' he said, 'But casting this spell is taking quite a lot out of me, so I will be brief. I am Dorian of House Pavus, and I am sustaining this projection with Fade energy emitted by the memories of your classmate, and hopefully your friend, Felix Alexius. By his request, when he was last conscious. He vanished without warning, and we both reasoned that you deserve to know... He is dying. His father is convinced otherwise, but... Things are not looking very promising, I am afraid. So consider this his way of saying goodbye. I hope you treated him well; he deserved nothing less than that. If there is a young woman by the name of Shoshana Cadash among you, she gets an especially warm farewell. Carry on'.

And so she is. She is carrying on. In a world where she will no longer look up to meet a pair of familiar brown eyes; no longer find herself carried off by a peal of contagious laughter; no longer lean into the warmth of a gentle embrace.

She is carrying on.

She is studying hard to complete the course that she and Felix began together: him, a foreign student from far-off Tevinter, and her, a 'special case', one of the handful of dwarves and elves allowed to enroll at the University of Orlais and prove that they deserved sharing a classroom with humans - by decree of the empress herself.

She is minding the store, and wrangling with fussy customers, and watching them leave. Always watching them leave. Drift off into the dusk, amid the hazy yellow circles of festive lanterns - to some place where they are eagerly awaited by someone they love.


	11. Day 11. Ritual

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Ritual prompt has been interpreted as the Joining Ritual. Felix is alive and well!

Dear Ser Stroud,

I am calling you that in the absence of a code name. Perhaps we should consider having one.

My friend Dorian and I went by Dragon One and Dragon Two when we had to exchange communications on the outskirts of Redcliffe, away from my father's watchful eye.

And yes, I know that this is somewhat infantile, but please allow me this indulgence. Neither of us is a stranger to looking death in the face; sometimes, a little levity is the one thread one can cling on to in situations like these, in order to stay sane.

Anyway. Without further ado.

I am in. (Maker, I always wanted to say that).

Just as you and I discussed, I trekked across these scenic red sands until I came across the group of Wardens gathering here in the Approach. As soon as their silhouettes - instantly recognizable by the griffin wing epaulets on their cuirasses - loomed through the rolling sand clouds, I made sure to bend my knees and scoop up a generous handful of sand, scattering it over my clothing to make my appearance a bit more wretched. Honestly, I should have just foregone the last remnants of my father's alchemical powders, which I have still been trying to take regularly to slake off the Blight. That would have made me more ghoulish, I think... But on the other hand, I would have been too delirious to keep up my act.

Be that as it may. As per plan, I assumed the guise of a hapless student, dying of the Blight yet still determined to seek out the brave heroes that keep evil at bay, and try to do some good while there is still time. Et cetera, et cetera. Which is not entirely untrue, I suppose!

Since my spoken Orlesian is a little bit rusty - not that I could ever pass for a native speaker - I introduced myself as an Antivan, to explain my northern accent. And to complete my cover story, I henceforth go by the name of Tristan.

Fortunately, none of the Wardens I have encountered thus far are from actual Antiva! Which may be my one saving grace, as, quite frankly, I do not think that my overall performance was all that convincing. I might have done it better after a few rehearsals, but as things stood, I mentally cringed at some parts of my impassioned (and very rasping, sometimes) speech.

Still, the Wardens did not voice any objections, and granted me a chance to join their ranks. I believe that they are desperate for fresh recruits, which does appear suspicious, in the absence of a Blight. They just as readily accepted another new arrival, all the way from Crestwood: an elven girl named Jana, who says that a group of Wardens saved her from the undead that rose from the lake to attack her village.

I would wager that they were the same Wardens that tried to capture you before you and I crossed paths. She seemed unaware of that, however, and spoke of her dashing rescue with a kind of enamoured fervour that I found rather endearing. She is a lovely child, and I hope no harm comes to her during her service to the Wardens ('child'... she might be close to my age, for all I know; but the three years I had to live with the Blight really did feel like three decades).

We underwent our Joining together, Jana and I. Well, you obviously know what it entails, and we did it all: ventured into the desert to hunt some darkspawn and draw their blood; then drank that same blood and collapsed into darkness, into the grasp of the same nightmares that would haunt me during my worst nights with the Blight. They are still there - I believe they are supposed to be? - but I feel a clarity of thought and strength of limb that I haven't experienced in years! Also, all food tastes ten times more delicious all of a sudden!.. I wonder if the Inquisitor felt that way as well when she awoke from Tranquility?

But that is neither here nor there. You want to know what information I've managed to gather, now that the Wardens have accepted me as one of their own. So far, I have not learned much - but I have seen Warden Commander Clarel (a formidable woman, even from a distance!), and most crucially, the man who keeps weaseling about at her heel. Whispering what everyone thinks is 'counsel' - while she listens, with a resigned wince on her face. As if she were being forced to down poison. That has to be the source of corruption that you've been suspecting.

I know that man, though I don't think he remembers me - the real identity behind Tristan, that is. He'd think me too lowly to be graced with his presence, being as I am... not quite a mage.

His name is Livius Erimond; he ~~is~~ was a colleague of my father's at the Magisterium, and I think he must have been among the people who came to recruit him into the Venatori (I am about eighty-five percent certain, as I myself was bedridden half the time). He is definitely a member of that cult regardless. And out of all the magisters I've met, he comes closest to the mental image that will likely surface in the mind of a southerner when they think of an 'evil Tevinter'. He is very full of himself, and will do anything to claw himself a bit of greater power. Up to becoming a god king in Corypheus' supposed new Tevinter.

I fear that he has been trying to use Clarel the same way my father - I do love him, and miss him, but let's call a spade a spade - wanted to use Grand Enchanter Fiona. Whatever it is the Wardens have been fearing, whatever it is he has been offering Clarel - it has to be a lie. A ploy to get the Wardens to do something - I don't know what yet - for Corypheus.

Maybe the Calling that has struck you - us - is also the result of some kind of sick blood magic. I will let you know as soon as I find out more.

I do apologize for my verbosity. I promise I will be sharing more succinct, businesslike reports on what I find from hereon in. For now, I am merely rambling because I am... oddly elated to be part of your investigation?

You know that, as I was heading for Tevinter, before I got waylaid by those bandits and you saved my life, I was resigned to die. I did sincerely believe that this was it. This was as far as my life's journey was taking me. And I was content to let go.

But this - our sudden encounter, your news of the Wardens, me nagging at you to repay my life's debt, until you so kindly allowed me to be an inside man (again!)... It just feels right. The influence of the Venatori cult continues to spread, and I feel it's a moral obligation to thwart their scheming once more. Especially considering that, even at a time when my father was yet a good man, Erimond was (pardon the bluntness) a ball of slime.

I will be watching him closely.

F


	12. Day 12. Tattoo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elgara goes to ask for a tattoo from a recruit of hers, who was a tattoo artist by trade before joining the Inquisition. Now, this recruit, who also has an Inquisitor AU of her own, and her own story, The Illustrated Woman, has quite a backstory of her own:
> 
> She is originally from Orzammar. Born to a female noble hunter and a high-ranking male dwarf from a respectable caste, she was perceived as a ‘boy’, therefore allowing her mother’s side of the family to move up in society. Struggling to reconcile her duty to her relatives and her personal freedom, she eventually left that life behind and moved to the surface.

After pocketing a small, neatly folded sheet of paper, the Inquisitor thinks for a while and decides to head for the stables. She knows that this is the most likely place where she'll find the person that she is looking for. And she proves to be right.

Even before the scent of hay and horse reaches her, she is hit by a burst of something else. Something that she has become quite attuned to, after the glowing Anchor on her hand pulled her from the quiet snowy whiteness of Tranquility out into a word where people feel so many vibrant, loud emotions.

She senses emotions here as well: warm, golden ones; they envelop her in a glittering veil as she hurries across the lower courtyard, swerving around the water puddles... And the stables are where that veil is woven. By two people sitting and talking; two voices laughing; two hearts reaching hopefully towards each other. It is a beautiful thing to sense, to witness; she hopes that she will be able to create such precious emotions with someone dear to her, too... And soon.

She slows down at the stables' threshold, smiling to herself as the veil caresses her. Then, after a few moments of indulgence, she clears her throat to make her presence known.

The conversation pauses. The two people inside - one of the Inquisition's dwarven recruits, and Warden Blackwall - sit up straight on their bales of hay. Like children after a schoolmaster walks in. She thinks she also catches of glimpse of them drawing apart their hands, where their fingertips were almost touching.

'Your Ladyship!'

She smiles at them reassuringly; a schoolmaster is the last person she wants to be. At least, not the kind of schoolmaster who punishes people for talking.

'I hope I am not too much of a bother. I just wanted to talk to Jade'.

Jade - the dwarf - slips off her makeshift seat and, pushing back a strand of glossy, slightly wavy chestnut hair, looks at the Inquisitor expectantly with her vivid green eyes.

The Inquisitor falters under that gaze for a moment. Suddenly - most of her mood changes are sudden; another side effect of having her Tranquility reversed - her chest feels constricted by guilt. After all, the reason why Jade is with the Inquisition now is because she gave shelter to some refugees from the Inquisitor's Circle, and had her home burned down by rogue Templars. She simply had nowhere else to go after that - after being left with nothing but embers - and tagged along to Haven, and eventually to Skyhold. It's her, the Inquisitor's, fault that...

No. No it isn't.

She grits her teeth together and pushes the feeling down.

She is not to blame for what those madmen did. Jade said so herself.

Jade does not hate her.

She did not destroy her home, the life she'd built on the surface. She gave her a new home, a new life, a chance to fight for a good cause.

To whine about that bloody fire would be to insult Jade, after she told her repeatedly not to worry. She is stronger than this guilt. She is better. She is more. More than the scar on her forehead, and the cracks that it left in her mind. She is taking potions to help heal the cracks; she is meditating in the Fade; she has people who listen to her. She is coping.

'I know that you used to be a tattoo artist,' she says. Genially. Boldly. Without a quiver in her voice.

'So I was wondering if you could tattoo me'.

She fishes for the paper she has brought along in her pocket, and unfolds it. There are two designs there, sketched in pencil. One is a tree, like an alienage vhenandahl, with sprawling roots and overhanging branches that touch at the tips, forming an enclosed outline. The other, is the symbol of the Circle, with gaps in several places, as if it had been slashed apart.

'I thought this could go over my heart; because I always carry my people with me...'

She points to the tree, while holding the paper out in her other hand, for Jade to examine closer.

'And the broken Circle one could go on the opposite side; that is, on my back. As something I am leaving behind... but not quite rejecting. Because I made friends in the Circle; I became who I am, for better or for worse'.

'Those are such excellent choices, my lady!' Blackwall blurts out - but then sort of awkwardly skulks back, embarrassed for cutting in.

Jade gives him a smile over her shoulder.

'They really are!' she scrutinizes the designs one more time, and takes the paper from the Inquisitor.

' I could definitely work with that - if you requisition some new tools for me'.

The Inquisitor nods enthusiastically.

'I'll get straight to it! Thank you, Jade! It... It means a lot. To have something on my skin apart from... This'.

She gestures vaguely at her forehead.

Jade crinkles her brow slightly, growing sombre.

'Something you chose for yourself...' she exhales softly. 'I understand'.

With a wistful glance back at Blackwall, she tucks the paper slip into her vest and rolls up her sleeves, revealing a dense, stark layer of tattoos, to match the geometrical patterns that highlight her cheekbones.

'Back in Orzammar, my body was not my own. I was to wield it as a tool in service of clan and kin. What I did with it, and when, was predefined for me. So when I finally... had enough, and left for the surface, the first thing I did... after I stopped hissing at the sun and tying weights to my feet so I wouldn't fall into the sky... Which looked quite a bit silly, I know...'

Blackwall, who has been listening to Jade with the same air of sombre sympathy, as the Inquisitor, cannot help but grunt in amusement at that mental image. Jade gives him a sideways smirk, but then her green eyes turn serious again.

'The first thing I did was get apprenticed to a tattoo master, and learn how to turn my body into art. In a way that I controlled. So... Like I said. I understand'.

She reaches forward and gives the Inquisitor's forearm a firm squeeze.

'I'm looking forward to helping you'.


	13. Day 13. Breathless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An angsty take on the crumbled wall near the war room. Bear in mind that Elgara, the Inquisitor in this ficlet collection, is a former Tranquil; and adjusting to post-Tranquility life is a great challenge.

There is a gap in the wall, in the corridor leading to Skyhold's war room. The ancient stone has crumbled into a messy, misshapen mound, revealing a patch of sky. Pearly and overcast sometimes, and sometimes blinding blue or deep purple that melts into black - but always breathing a gust of refreshing cold.

It will never be mended, that gap. For the Inquisitor needs it.

Her mind, once emotionless, Tranquil, is still reeling from all the feelings that the Mark let in when - through Andraste's intervention or gods know what else - the leering black void between her and the Fade was bridged again. And sometimes, the crackling tension of the war council, the tumult of her advisors' disagreeing voices, the throbbing ache behind her temples when she has to decide, decide, decide... It all becomes too much.

The war room's walls begin sliding towards one another, like a trap in one of Varric Tethras' books, threatening to slam together and crush her bones to splinters.

The air turns to cotton, stuffing her nostrils, cramming into her mouth, building up inside her throat till it bloats.

She cannot breathe, cannot think, cannot see through the blots of searing yellow and blood red that shove into her eyes, dancing off any metal objects in the room... And she can just barely hold back the urge to screech, choking all the cotton out, and turn the war table over, so that all those blasted figurines fly off and stop, stop pushing against her eyeballs with their polished brightness.

When that happens, her advisors spring to attention. They know by now that no attempt to call her name, or to urge her to focus - not even any amount of disgusted noises from Seeker Penraghast - is going to do anything. Except maybe make her bend forward, with her thrumming skull clasped in between stiffly curled finger claws.

So they know by now to simply push the doors open, and hope for the best.

The instant they do that, the instant her path is clear, the Inquisitor focuses the last shreds of her sanity into a single magical leap. Fade Step.

The spell carries her at lightning speed away from the war room, away from its constricting walls and stifling air. She is followed by a trail of white glow that creates the silhouettes of her countless ghostly doubles, all desperately hurrying away - for a moment, before melting into feather-light puffs. At some point, her movements speed up to much that she appears to vanish entirely... Only to manifest again in front of the gap in the wall.

She stumbles towards the pile of rubble, grips at the nearest stone she can reach... And breathes.

No matter the time of day, or the weather outside; no matter if the wind has faded to a warm, gentle whisper, or risen to a screech, spitting clumps of wet snow or gargling on a drizzle - the mountain air rushes in, welcome. Relished.

Draught after life-giving draught, it fills her lungs, and washes away the sticky cotton. With a shudder, the pain and panic release their clutches, and reason returns to the Inquisitor's widened eyes.

She will not risk going back to the war room so soon after it nearly crushed her, and chooses instead to waddle off towards her quarters, with her fingers trailing along the delapidated masonwork. But after a couple of hours, which she spends resting in a thick fluffy cocoon of bear pelt blankets, and watching the golden dance in the fireplace while her lover holds her close, silent yet present, always ready to help - she might have it in her to review the decision that she was asked to make. And to come up with something coherent.

There is a gap in the wall, in the corridor leading to Skyhold's war room. A gap that will never be mended. For through that gap, the Inquisitor breathes, when she feels that she can't.


	14. Day 14. Language

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We are once again in the realm of Alexius/Inquisitor romance. Warning for mild smut.

Elgara does not regret it, not for a moment - coming to him, her former enemy and her Inquisition's captured researcher.

She does not regret confessing that she has always found charm and allure in the way he speaks, in the way he carries himself - now that grief and bitterness have begun to ease their hold over him. In the way that his face has been marked by many eventful years of life. In the way his eyes light up when he is engrossed in magical studies.

She does not regret inviting him to her bed.

Letting him finally return that giddy kiss that she'd given him when they were celebrating the victory in Wycome. Letting him come to her quarters later that night, ostensibly to discuss his research findings... But in reality, with no other purpose but to have him kiss her again; and press, breathless, against her; and slip his hands under her nightgown, feeling her, exciting her; and lay himself down underneath her, his face between her thighs, a wicked glee in his hazy gaze.

She does not regret the touches, warm and wet and clawing; the gasps and the cries and curses, hers and then his, when she moved to take him in.

She does not regret drifting to sleep beside him, half-drunk on the elated thought that she made him happy - and that he made her happy as well... And that she could actually feel all of this, with the tiniest sliver of her skin, the finest tingling pinpoints at her fingertips, the deepest, sweetest reaches of her body and mind.

...Yet when she closes her eyes and the Fade encircles her, the silhouettes of her advisors loom into being. Smoky-black, save for the burning eyes, which are all the same acidic colour, with green vapour oozing out of them like bitter tears.

'He cast blood magic on you, Lady Lavellan!' they tell her, in horrible, echoing voices. 'This has to be the only explanation! All magisters are the same: nothing but spawn of evil! If you think otherwise, it means that he is controlling your mind! We shall have him imprisoned for this - in a real cell this time!'

She jerks awake in cold sweat, with such a loud outcry that her lover - her Gereon, - who has apparently slipped out of her embrace and started getting dressed to leave, freezes on the spot, one arm tangled awkwardly in his robes.

'What's wrong?' he asks. Genuinely frightened. She knows he is; her raw, overemotional mind is keenly attuned to other people’s feelings as well.

And before she knows it, she shares her whole dream.

'Of course, it's all ludicrous,' she adds, as a hasty, apologetic afterthought. 'Probably one of those intrusive ideas I get sometimes. My advisors are nowhere near that prejudiced, or unreasonable. I am certain that if I let them know that you and I are together, they would...'

Her voice trails off, and she hangs her head, her chest contracting.

'You are still frightened,' he guesses, sitting down beside her and taking her hand in his to kiss her knuckles.

'Yes,' she admits. 'I am trying to fight it, but...'

'Then we shall not risk it,' he says firmly. 'We shall not do anything that gives you such anguish. The last thing I want...'

Now, his voice begins to tremble.

'...Is to make you suffer because of me. If you would prefer not to...'

'No!' she squeezes his hand, perhaps too tightly. 'No! I want... I want you... Just as much as I always did. We will just have to be cautious. Maybe my mind will stop tormenting me if I convince it that the advisors are none the wiser.’

It's not very logical, is it? To hide always means to be on edge. But she does not consider this, not right now. At the moment, she is assured that her idea will work; and he does not take too long to convince that this is the best course of action, either. He says little, but Elgara feels a throb through her chest, struck by a tidal wave of relief that spreads from him when he realizes that she does not want to break up with him after all

'Very well,' he whispers, gently tracing the outline of her face. 'I am no stranger to meeting behind closed doors.’

So they agree - to keep seeing each other in secret. To speak a language of hints and symbols that only the two of them understand.

A rose bud, slipped among alchemical ingredients, signifying that Elgara will be waiting in the garden.

Seemingly innocuous research correspondence, worded in a way that the first letter of the first paragraph, then the second, then the third, and so forth, spells out THE ARMOURY WILL BE EMPTY.

A cautious tap of the fingers against a desk during a conversation with other people present.

A rapid-fire exchange of quotes from a book, meant to disguise flirtation.

One excuse after another to leave camp side by side, whenever the captive magister is allowed to travel with the Inquisition to investigate a Tevinter ruin.

A long, elaborate game that the Orlesians would have applauded (if the two of them were also Orlesians, and both human). Always with the most precious prize: a deep, thirsty dive between lips and legs; a poignantly sweet bite at tender skin in the crook of a neck, the inner thigh; an impatient, exhilarating thrust of one body against the other. All of which needs to be covered up with the greatest care.

Good thing that he is a former politician, and she - if no strong emotions are tearing her mind apart - can focus hard enough to emulate the impassive expression she used to have as a Tranquil.


	15. Day 15. Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little diversion meant to explain how Elgara recruited one of her agents, a Qunari mercenary named Squale (who also has her own Inquisitor verse, and romances Sera either way).

The instructions are pretty straightforward. After Squale is done with her current job - which is also straightforward; they usually are, so much so that it gets boring to trudge through them - she is to go to a new location. Duck into one of the narrow, rat-infested alleyways that form a dark, rancid maze under the gilded spires of Val Royeaux, and join the guards of whatever new noble is hiring her. And then stand against the dim light and swirls of fog, and look scary.

That's all that's ever required of her. Look scary. The Orlesians, one after the other, an endless array of masks blending together in her head, hire her to plant herself in place, spread her shoulders, flash her eyes... Maybe show the tips of her teeth, which she has sharpened to complete her look. Apparently, together with her height and horns and hairstyle (shaved at the sides to resemble a shark fin), and her favourite black makeup, it has enough of an effect on people that she does not even need to bare her sword.

She is not even a mercenary at this point; she's a bloody gargoyle. A statue meant to instill fear in her employers' enemies so that they turn tail and run. Or, she doesn't know, agree to do whatever the employer wants from them. Of course, it means that Squale can almost literally earn money in her sleep - but on the other hand, it's... Demeaning. This is not what she trained for. And sometimes, as she looks on indifferently as the scrambling humans at her feet, she feels like bits of herself are peeling away. Like old nail polish. Chipping away, and then getting lost in nothingness.

She's been trying to write poetry about it. Dark, sombre poetry - but nobody is going to care for it, are they? Gargoyles aren't supposed to know how to write.

In between all these thoughts,she almost misses the turn she is supposed to take... And when she backtracks, she is met with a chorus of human shrieking. Yeah. Nothing new there.

'Come on,' she breathes out, rolling her eyes in exasperation. 'It's me; we were hired by the same pers - '

The words die on the tip of her tongue (like everything dies and withers in this world... ahem). It turns out that the human guards aren't panicking, running around and bumping into each other and screaming their heads off, because they saw her.

It's because none of them are wearing any pants.

'Someone stole our breeches!' one of the humans whimpers, rushing past Squale, a clothes line trailing after him. He must have snatched it off the nearest street corner.

His fellows fall upon it like ravens on carrion. With hurried, shaking fingers, they unclasp the pins and yank at the sheets and pillowcases, girdling their bare bottoms with it.

Squale quirks an eyebrow.

Well. This is new. Whoever their employer is sending them to fight against apparently has a sense of humour.

Now that the humans have more or less covered up their shame, it is time to move out. The guards first, and Squale at the back, for an effective finale. Even though she has a feeling that, with her companions looking this ridiculous, she might have to improvise to make any sort of impression. Maybe she'll actually get to wield her blade, for a change.

With a lot of screeching and plop-plop-plopping against the stone with their bare feet (supposedly, there was little point to put their shoes on with, no breeches there to keep the leather from chafing against exposed skin), the guards flood into a deserted courtyard.

Their arrival is greeted with a volley of arrows and hissing purple magic blasts from the cover of some haphazardly stacked supply crates. A few hit the target, and the humans flop comically to the ground, half-naked arises up.

Squale does not know them well enough to feel particularly devastated - and death does come for all,as she says in her poetry - but still. It's a bit of a shame for them to go like that. Face down in the dirt and no breeches.

One of the more agile guards manages to smash a crate into splinters with a well-aimed sword strike. This reveals the women that have been shooting at them.

One is a human. She is dressed like an Orlesian, but actually looks dignified, rather than ridiculously puffed up, as she elegantly twirls her staff, raining fire and destruction, and maneuvers on gilded finger-long heels among greasy chunks of trash and the droppings of some critter or other.

The other is an elf. An archer, in brithtly coloured clothing that looks patched from bits and pieces and does not provide an ounce of the camouflage you'd expect a rogue to have. Still, there is a certain grace about her leaps and somersaults and about the way she skids across the cracking pavement, evading the grasp of the blundering guards. Unlike the human's perfectly measured composure, her grace is wild and flamboyant, and watching her dance amid the debris - unrestrained as a whirlwind - brings a smile to Squale's face. She is pretty, too: freckled, soft-lipped, with one of those distinct elven profiles; and the unevenly cut strands of her pale-blonde hair seem to form a whimsical sort of pattern.

Ah. Squale has been getting distracted. Now that their cover has been blown - literally - the two women have other fighters coming to their aid. Also and elf and a human, but swordswomen this time.

That second elf, older and stockier than the blonde cutie, holds herself like an experienced warrior, on par with her scarred human comrade - but if Squale is not mistaken... There is the sun brand in her forehead.

She ought to be a Tranquil! An expressionless, blank-eyed former mage. She has met a couple - alchemists and rune makers usually. But this one is definitely making all sorts of expressions, as she blocks the guards' strikes, and throws a glance at the first elf over her shoulder, crying out,

'Why didn't you take their weapons?!'

'Because no breeches!' the cutie responds with a gleeful guffaw.

Ah. So she is the one with a sense of humour then.

Still boundlessly puzzled by these people, Squale takes part in the fight mechanically, parrying and ducking by instinct... Until she nearly trips over a body. A very fancy-looking body, in a jacket with puffy sleeves and a gilded mask that has an arrow sticking out of one eye slit.

'Hold up!' Squale roars, in her most authoritative, booming voice.

'The guy who hired us is dead! We don't have to keep this up!'

The surviving guards slowly lower their weapons and back into a far corner, murmuring in agreement.

'Wait, are you serious?' the human swordwoman exclaims, with a stark Nevarran accent.

Squale shrugs, the old boredom rising sickly in her chest.

'We are mercenaries; we did not even know why he had beef with you'.

'We never found out ourselves,' the older elf confesses, giving the younger a very meaningful look. 'You can always offer your sword arm to us, though. If you... forgive us for cutting down your colleagues'.

The Nevarran looks like a kettle that is about to let out a puff of steam with a deafening whistle.

'Herald, you can't - '

Squale's boredom dissipates. The Herald? As in, the Herald of Andraste? The magical hero that has supposedly been killing demons and patching up the sky? That... That sure sounds more worthwhile than just standing around and playing gargoyle.

'If you let me take down demons, then yes! I'm game!' Squale says, with a vivacity she did not know she had. And a tiny part of her, somewhere deep inside, quivers softly like a green sapling reaching for the light. Hoping that finally, she will stop losing herself.


	16. Day 16. Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A different take on Solas' conversation with the Inquisitor in the Fade. In this version, he conjured a dream-like copy of Haven to calm the Inquisitor as she was suffering from post-Adamant nightmares.

There is one thing that the demon whispers, flexing the long, spidery spikes on it back with a dry crackle and grasping at Elgara's throat with its clammy fingers, pale as mort flesh.

There is one last thing that she hears when this towering, skeletal creature lifts her off the ground (or whatever stands for ground in the twisting, swirling, ever-shifting Fade). So high up that her cheekbone nearly touches the row of decaying needlepoint teeth under the fused fleshy mask that obscures the demon's eyes.

There is one last thing - one last rasp into Elgara's ear, before a finishing strike of Vivienne's conjured golden sword dispels this aspect of the Nightmare.

'I don't even need to kill you now. Not when you are in the Fade in the flesh. Next time your body goes to sleep, my fearlings will find you and tear you apart... And you will awaken Tranquil.'

Elgara stares ahead with enormous, glassy eyes, as the demon's dying cackle fades into the green mist. A pain seems to pulse through the pale sun brand on her forehead, while everything on the inside of her body shrivels and crams into a heap of brittle debris.

The sensation lingers throughout the aftermath of the battle of Adamant. It pushes her outside her own head; and she barely registers her own voice as she invites the Wardens into the Inquisition, to atone for what they did while ensnared by Corypheus.

She thinks she also shakes hands with Ser Stroud - rescued from the Fade along with Varric's friend Hawke, as Dorian used his favourite time magic spell, which he calls Haste, to freeze the gargantuan bloated spider that blocked their way out through the Rift. And she also checks on Warden Commander Clarel, mangled by the dragon but kept alive with threads of healing magic, and promises that Dagna at Skyhold will give her tools to recuperate. But all of this leaves little imprint on her consciousness; and she waves away one of the junior Wardens, an Antivan lad by the name of Tristan, when he tries to talk to her.

Because what consumes her, what blocks out her focus, what keeps her from properly grasping the reins of her own body, is the fear that the Nightmare was right.

That if she allows herself to slip, to doze off, to wander too far into the Fade, she will be back to how she used to be before the Mark, the next time she opens her eyes.

That all these feelings, messy and agonizing and yet so beautiful, will be stolen from her again. And she will never again beam in joy when looking over the fruit of the Inquisition's labours. Or gasp in awe at all the exquisite fabrics on display next time Vivienne takes her shopping. Or flush and grin at Cassandra's smutty literature; or snicker at Bull and Sera's inappropriate banter. Or stand tall and relentless, sustained by righteous rage, when magister Erimond is brought before her for judgement. Or melt into exhilarated delight when she embraces the other magister, whom she pardoned and fell in love with. He is out there, among the healers tending to Clarel, and she did not even properly acknowledge his presence...

She pays attention only to that fear, listens only to that fear - and casts frost spell after frost sspell, letting the biting icy energy wash over her face to keep herself from falling asleep.

She keels this up for countless hazy hours while the Inquisition remains at Adamant. Settling some affairs or other... She thinks.

It is when they ate supposed to move out of the half-ruined fortress, and head back to Skyhold, that she suddenly jolts out of her feverish, absent state, when a hand rests firmly upon her shoulder.

'Are you all right?' asks Cassandra's voice, and Elgara turns her heavy, lead-steeped head to try and focus on her with dim, red, burning eyes.

'You have been acting odd, and Alexius, whose company you usually.. seek out... for whatever reason... Says that he has not seen you for the last three days.'

'Oh. Has it been three days?' she slurs, forcing a very long, bleary blink.

Cassandra makes one of her infamous 'Ugh!' noises... Or at least, Elgara thinks she does. It is hard to tell if she's really hearing it or half drifting into the Fade again. She shouldn't - she shouldn't! There are fearlings there, lying in wait!

'If they catch me... kill me... in my dreams...' she mumbles, perhaps out loud, without realizing, while her shaking hands fumble to cast a new ice blast. '...I'll become Tranquil again. '

'They will not,' Cassandra says with a vehement assurance.

Elgara forces her numb neck to keep her lolling head upright, long enough to object... To say that Cassandra has no way of knowing that... No way... Of fighting...

But in another blink, Cassandra vanishes. Elgara finds herself seating... On a bed? Wrapped in a warm, heavy quilt, and bathed in the pale, silvery blue light that streams though the rime-touched window while snow falls noiselessly outside.

The room is small, with wooden walls, quite unlike her quarters in Skyhold, or any place around Adamant... Which is in a desert, far from anywhere snowy. This place, odd as it is, reminds her of...

Haven. The realization washes over her with a clarity she has not had in days. She is in Haven, which has been gone for months. So she really did fall asleep then, and is revisiting her memories.

She stirs, panicked, crumpling the quilt into a tangled lump. This lapse cannot be allowed to last; she has to... she is...

'You are safe here,' a familiar voice tells her, with its usual thoughtful cadence. 'Cassandra asked me to watch over your sleep, as I did when we first met, so I constructed this little pocket realm in your dreams, surrounded by wards. They ought to hold against any creatures of the Fade... Provided that magister Alexius does not come barging in and trampling all over my work. He seems unreasonably agitated over your state'.

Elgara exhales, and slides back under the covers. The warmth envelops her like the snow is enveloping the ghost of the mountain village. Forever kept alive in this corner of the Fade through magic.

'What do you mean, unreasonably?' she asks, in a louder, brighter voice. Relieved to have her mind occupied by something else rather than nightmares.

Solas - for it is, indeed, Solas, leaning back nonchalantly in a chair by her bedside - quirks an eyebrow, while one corner of his mouth mirrors the motion.

'Unreasonably for a man who is supposed to be a mere researcher in your employ.'

A new sick feeling stirs in Elgara: a pang of old fear that, should her relationship be discovered, people might think it a ploy on the imprisoned Tevinter's part.

Solas notes the change in her demeanour, and lets the matter go.

'I am sorry; it is not mine to pry. Please, take your time to rest.'

'Thank you,' Elgara says sincerely - meaning it on both accounts, really - and settles in to watch the snow.


	17. Day 17. Comfort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And for dessert, the traditional father/son Alexius (Alexii?) reunion!

In the wake of the battle of Adamant, Inquisitor Elgara Lavellan, tormented by nightmares and sleep-deprived to the point of scarcely managing to command her limbs to move, needs a very, very long rest. Her condition, that tortured look in her unfocused eyes, seems to worry Gereon Alexius, the Inquisition's personal indentured magister who has been doing research and was also allowed to come on some missions as a reward for good behaviour.

It is rather odd, some might find: what should this captive Vint care for Her Ladyship?

Yet he clearly does care. There is a stamp of unease in the create of his forehead, the darkness around his eyes; he keeps asking about the Inquisitor in a cautious, roundabout way that keeps trying the patience of Seeker Penraghast - keeps trying to check on her... But it cannot be done, not yet. For he has his own duties to attend to, healing skills to put to use.

The siege of the Warden fortress has cut a bloody swathe through the ranks of both the Inquisition and its new allies, now (almost) free of mind control. Alexius is called on, again and again, to help mix the salves and potions that he became an unwilling expert on during his son's illness. Or sometimes, he is asked to cast a spell on a writhing, controrted, scarcely recognizable victim of a demon: a charge of soothing blue light to seal the ripped-up flesh, or a pulse of unearthly green, to slow down time around the patient and give the battle surgeon a chance to do their work before it is too late.

Among the wounded that Alexius attends to, Warden Commander Clarel is one of the most notable. He did, after all, stay behind to help her - casting one of his green time-altering spells over her to slow down her fall from the blighted dragon's jaws, and missing the chance to leap into the fade rift with the Inquisitor and her companions.

Even though she lives, her body still passed through the beast's millstone jaws, and she might require some of Arcanist Dagna's clever inventions in order to move about. The healers' job right now is to quell her bleeding and dull her pain, until she is strong enough to travel to Skyhold. Alexius assists them most diligently ... perhaps to assuage his guilt; for Clarel is so much like Fiona. A woman with a brave heart and clear purpose, manipulated by a scheming agent of the Elder One into nearly destroying her own people.

And then, there is Dorian, Alexius' former apprentice and present junior partner in snark at all things southern. He plummeted into the Fade with the rest of the Inquisitor's small circle, and emerged with his face nearly bloodless while streaks of glinting dark red snaked out of his ears.

'You really overexerted yourself, Dorian,' Alexius says, conjuring a glowing band that locks over the younger Tevinter's forearm, measuring his blood pressure.

'Freezing that spider... And speeding up your whole group? That kind of spell should have been cast by several mages'.

'Well,' Dorian objects, stifling a cough. 'Madame Vivienne has not deigned to dabble in Tevinter magic, and Elgara was rather... indisposed, as you may have noticed. Also, you seem to have pulled off a similar trick in the meanwhile, so you can't really be one to talk!'

'I focused my effort on one person, though, not a colossal monster and a party of adventurers,' Alexius corrects him softly.

Dorian does his best to shape his still rather clammy face into a mocking expression.

'Ah, so you admit that you don't have half my magical capacity, then, o docent meus?'

Alexius momentarily distracts himself from casting to press his hand against his chest, feigning heartbreak.

'You are a wicked boy, Dorian Pavus, and I despair sometimes when I look at you'.

'Maker, you two,' a voice says behind their backs.

It sounds rather... Emotional? Moved to tears? It is hard to tell, for whoever just spoke is wearing a full-face Warden helmet, which warps their voice, as if they were breathing loudly into a metal bucket.

'Excuse me?' Alexius asks, frowning. 'Do you need healing'.

'Well, uh, no... Not the usual kind...' the helmeted Warden shuffles in place, embarrassed. 'I have been meaning to find you, to talk to either you or the Inquisitor, but everything has been so hectic that I... I don't really have a proper preamble for this'.

They shuffle some more, and then manage to free their head of its bucket confines in a single forceful tug.

...No. Not their head. His head. This Warden is a very specific person. A very specific he. With the same silver-specked brown eyes and slightly curved nose as Alexius. And with black hair that, the last he spoke either of the two other speechless, gawking men, was chopped close to his skull, after falling out in patches... And now is growing out again.

'What... What do you think?' he asks, a sudden spark of mischief coming alive in his eyes. 'Now that this business with Erimond is done with, I really need to head to Val Royeaux like this and surprise Shoshi... You know, the... sweetheart I met at university. If she hasn't forgotten me'.

'You are bloody impossible to forget!' Dorian chokes at last, clutching hard at Alexius, who seems to have lost any and all ability to do anything except stare and faintly sob.

'Look at you, going around, giving people heart attacks! Kaffas - you were Stroud's inside man, weren't you! He mentioned an eager northern boy, posing as an Antivan... Joining the Wardens to spy on Erimond! But he never - '

Somehow, Alexius manages to slip out of his grasp and stagger towards the Warden.

'Was... Was it the cure... Joining the Wardens?' he whispers dazedly, while his trembling fingers reach out to touch the young man's face. Slowly. Fearfully. As if he were prepared for the vision before him to dissolve into nothing at any moment.

'I am sorry... I should have guessed... I should have searched harder... Found a way out sooner...'

'It's not a cure; not precisely. I just postponed the inevitable by thirty years or so... Which has given me a chance to do more good, at least. And trust me, Father - you had no way of knowing. These people are terribly secretive. Almost like magisters'.

He smiles; and the sight is enough to reduce Alexius to a quivering, melted puddle.

'Felix... My baby boy,' he mouths, collapsing into the young man's embrace and clasping tightly at the back of his armour.

'My baby... Safe... Alive...'

He abruptly tears himself free, a sharp note ringing through his voice.

'Did you swear a pledge of some manner to the Wardens? Do you have to serve them now? Will you... leave again?'

Felix shrugs, a little weakly, before drawing his father in again, cupping the back of his head with his hand.

'I honestly haven't a clue. I might not be needed until there is a Blight... And that might not happen in a hundred years! For now, all I know is that the Wardens are allied with the Inquisition. So I will be coming with you to Skyhold'.

'Do not let Varric interview you without me,' Dorian pipes in, after very carefully wiping the corners of his eyes with his index finger. 'I think I deserve a first-hand account of all the juicy details of your... Wardenship'.

'You deserve the very best, my friend,' Felix beams. 'Always'.

He moves over so that Dorian can join the embrace as well. And for a while, a sense of profound comfort envelops them all: the exhausted mage, the worried healer, and the resurrected Warden.


End file.
